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The Professor
2007-12-12, 01:15 AM
Alright, my group seems to be spitting out new campaigns like nobody's business, but that's fine with me.

This time around, the DM chose our Class and Alignment, leaving Race and the specifics up to us. This isn't really a bad thing, as we wanted something a bit new, and thought this would be fun.

He made one person a Paladin, another a Cleric, and he made me a Psychic Warrior.

Now, I've never played one of these guys before, nor any psionics really, but the DM LOVES psionics. I know enough about them to think of them as Fighter v. 2.0.

I decided to make him an Elan for RP reasons, but now I come to these wonderful boards to seek your wisdom on two fronts:

1. Without going King of Smack build, how can I optimize myself to best aid our party? We're starting at ECL 6, and so far, I'm shooting for the Illithid Slayer PrC. Full BaB, with nearly full manifesting. Looks pretty good to me.

Also: We have nearly every book at our disposal. ToB isn't available for this game, however.

and:

2. Something that's been irking me. It seems that according to the fluff, Elans... really aren't too much stranger then humans as far as personality is concerned. Sure, they live MUCH longer and tend towards atheism (which isn't good, as we're in the Forgotten Realms), but I'm having a difficult time making him seem... odd. Our group explains the -2 Cha as people get an 'uneasy feeling' in his presence, which I don't think quite fits. His diplomacy with other Elans is affected by this. Do they get weirded out by eachother? :smallconfused:

Thanks in advance, folks.

Grynning
2007-12-12, 01:34 AM
I would imagine that Elans often act somewhat aloof and superior, after all, they were hand-picked for the next stage in human evolution from their viewpoint. They would probably find other people's concerns and emotions somewhat trivial compared to their own ("Why are we wasting our time with this?") and make slightly condescending remarks about other people's emotional/mental abilities ("if you would learn a measure of self-control, this wouldn't happen..."). For inspiration, try watching some original episodes of Star Trek and watch how Spock behaves. He likes people and is a good crew-mate, but is always quite sure of the fact that he is better than everyone else.

As far as optimizing goes, I'm really not the best at it, but it's much like any of the other melee classes. You can easily go for "King of Smack Lite" just by focusing on two-handed weapons and Psionic Lion's Charge. They also make decent grapplers, with Expansion and Iron Grip.

Quietus
2007-12-12, 01:55 AM
2. Something that's been irking me. It seems that according to the fluff, Elans... really aren't too much stranger then humans as far as personality is concerned. Sure, they live MUCH longer and tend towards atheism (which isn't good, as we're in the Forgotten Realms), but I'm having a difficult time making him seem... odd. Our group explains the -2 Cha as people get an 'uneasy feeling' in his presence, which I don't think quite fits. His diplomacy with other Elans is affected by this. Do they get weirded out by eachother? :smallconfused:

Thanks in advance, folks.

If you don't want to go with the angle that Grynning has suggested, you can always explain that uneasy feeling as being the result of having lived FAR longer than most of their teammates. Being old - REALLY old - gives you a perspective on life that is lost on the younger, or in this case "normal", people. The uneasiness, in your case, comes from you looking like a regular guy in his prime (Or hell, go the fun route and be a "child"), but CARRYING yourself the way someone with a thousand or so years of experience does. It's not weird in and of itself, but when combined with your young appearance, it throws people off.

kamikasei
2007-12-12, 02:03 AM
If you don't want to go with the angle that Grynning has suggested, you can always explain that uneasy feeling as being the result of having lived FAR longer than most of their teammates. Being old - REALLY old - gives you a perspective on life that is lost on the younger, or in this case "normal", people. The uneasiness, in your case, comes from you looking like a regular guy in his prime (Or hell, go the fun route and be a "child"), but CARRYING yourself the way someone with a thousand or so years of experience does. It's not weird in and of itself, but when combined with your young appearance, it throws people off.

So why does it throw off other, equally young-old Elans?

It's a common problem; a number of races have Charisma penalties because they're "off-putting", even though this also makes them "off-putting" to themselves. You can explain it for Dwarves on the grounds that they actually really do have less personality due to living in so regimented a society. That Elans are just preternaturally creepy - more so than Illithids, apparently! - doesn't really add up.

Grynning
2007-12-12, 02:15 AM
Charisma penalties (and all ability score penalties, really) are also relative, though. If everyone of a certain species has the penalty, the standards for that society are just, well, lower. An orc with a charisma of 10 is pretty studly compared to other orcs, while one with 8 is just average to others of their species. In the case of Elan's, the Cha penalty, while meaningful when interacting with other specieis, doesn't really mean much in a gathering of Elans, since they all have the same relative scores (I suppose if you wanted to be picky you could ignore all charisma penalties when dealing exclusively with your own species, but -1 on the checks really isn't that big of a deal - once again, all of them have that penalty, so they are all equal in that regard).

Aquillion
2007-12-12, 02:18 AM
So why does it throw off other, equally young-old Elans?

It's a common problem; a number of races have Charisma penalties because they're "off-putting", even though this also makes them "off-putting" to themselves. You can explain it for Dwarves on the grounds that they actually really do have less personality due to living in so regimented a society. That Elans are just preternaturally creepy - more so than Illithids, apparently! - doesn't really add up.Don't Elan live in small, scattered groups? They probably wouldn't be too comfortable with anyone outside of those, including other Elan. And they wouldn't be using Charisma checks with people close enough to them to be inside that group anyway.

(Although, if a DM wanted to negate the penalty with other Elans, they could just assign a circumstance bonus for talking to members of their own race. Obviously not something you'd want to do with humans, but parties encounter Elans so rarely, and the race is so alien to everyone else, that it would probably be fair to let the Elan get an advantage at talking to them.)

Darkxarth
2007-12-12, 02:20 AM
In the case of Elan's, the Cha penalty, while meaningful when interacting with other specieis, doesn't really mean much in a gathering of Elans, since they all have the same relative scores (I suppose if you wanted to be picky you could ignore all charisma penalties when dealing exclusively with your own species, but -1 on the checks really isn't that big of a deal - once again, all of them have that penalty, so they are all equal in that regard).

-1 isn't much, but everyone having a Cha penalty doesn't mean you can ignore it. Bluff vs. Sense Motive is a decent example. Are all Elan innately bad liars? Such that Elan haven't mastered it among themselves?

At any rate, dealing with Elan as a race is a moot point (I believe) because they don't really have societies so much as they intrude on Human societies. (And creep everyone right the hell out, apparently.)

- DX

brian c
2007-12-12, 02:20 AM
So why does it throw off other, equally young-old Elans?

It's a common problem; a number of races have Charisma penalties because they're "off-putting", even though this also makes them "off-putting" to themselves. You can explain it for Dwarves on the grounds that they actually really do have less personality due to living in so regimented a society. That Elans are just preternaturally creepy - more so than Illithids, apparently! - doesn't really add up.

I generally house-rule that for races with a Cha penalty, they get a +1 bonus to all cha-based checks for members of their own race (+1 offsets -2 cha, for a race with -4 cha give them +2 to cha skills)



-1 isn't much, but everyone having a Cha penalty doesn't mean you can ignore it. Bluff vs. Sense Motive is a decent example. Are all Elan innately bad liars? Such that Elan haven't mastered it among themselves?

Sense Motive is Wis based, so that actually wouldn't cancel it out

tyckspoon
2007-12-12, 02:21 AM
Now, I've never played one of these guys before, nor any psionics really, but the DM LOVES psionics. I know enough about them to think of them as Fighter v. 2.0.

I decided to make him an Elan for RP reasons, but now I come to these wonderful boards to seek your wisdom on two fronts:

1. Without going King of Smack build, how can I optimize myself to best aid our party? We're starting at ECL 6, and so far, I'm shooting for the Illithid Slayer PrC. Full BaB, with nearly full manifesting. Looks pretty good to me.

As you said, Fighter v2.0. Pick your favorite effective Fighter technique and build toward it, then use your powers to enhance it. If you like two-handed smashing, Expansion and the weapon enhancements. Tripper? Expansion (naturally. It's awesome.) If you like an 'unarmored' concept, you can do that and use Inertial Armor, Force Screen, and/or Thicken Skin to cover it. There's also the PsyWar specialty of the claw fighter (with optional Bite attachment) . Basically, King of Smack while deliberately avoiding the step that makes the King actually cheesy.



2. Something that's been irking me. It seems that according to the fluff, Elans... really aren't too much stranger then humans as far as personality is concerned. Sure, they live MUCH longer and tend towards atheism (which isn't good, as we're in the Forgotten Realms), but I'm having a difficult time making him seem... odd. Our group explains the -2 Cha as people get an 'uneasy feeling' in his presence, which I don't think quite fits. His diplomacy with other Elans is affected by this. Do they get weirded out by eachother? :smallconfused:

Thanks in advance, folks.

Well, if you go with the part of Charisma that is natural force of personality and ability to bend the world to your desire (ie, the part that makes Sorcerers run) you could say that the transformation to an Elan has some diminishing effects. The once-human has gained power and immortality, but its personality is weaker and its presence in the world is lessened; it has less force of 'self'.

Not that this helps any with the other Cha-penalty races. Dwarves make worse sorcerers because they're unpleasant? Not buying that one. I wonder if Charisma will make any more sense in 4th Ed.

Darkxarth
2007-12-12, 02:31 AM
Sense Motive is Wis based, so that actually wouldn't cancel it out
Whoops, that was actually what I was trying to point out, I just forgot to do so.

Mewtarthio
2007-12-12, 02:38 AM
The process of becoming an Elan makes you somewhat less human than you were before (er... humanoid ...I mean, uh, sentient... well, regardless, you're less of a person). Your existence as what is essentially a psionic construct means that your own, natural, personality is diminished. There is less self-expression among the Elans because they're all part of the same freakish cult-thingy, but they generally don't care.

Dwarves are the same way. Generations of repression and strict lawfulness and adherence to tradition have actually selected against dwarves with much in the way of individuality. Half-orcs are slightly different: They're treated like dirt, and people like to kill half-orcs that seem too charismatic. Sure, an unnaturally charismatic half-orc can send his tormentors fleeing with a glare, but said tormentors will soon be complaining about the upstart, disobedience slave who should get lynched.